He’s president now, spell his name right

Popularity ratings aside, George W. Bush has one big advantage over President Obama: His name is much easier to spell. According to John Brooks Pounders, CEO of GooseGrade.com, which lets readers find mistakes and suggest corrections to bloggers and online authors, some 60 million web pages contain a misspelling of the president’s first name.

The most popular misspelling of the name is “Barak,” followed in a close second by “Barrak” and finally “Barrack.” At least in the case of the last one, the web writers have an excuse: It’s an actual English word, so spell checkers wouldn’t flag it. In any case, it’s no wonder some news outlets have recently started referring to him Barry.

“Hundreds — perhaps thousands — of bloggers and other online authors who misspell Barack Obama’s name in their writing will miss out on the tidal wave of online search traffic being generated this week,” said Pounders.